


Dayrunners

by Twilit



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, petrol-head wankery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-03 06:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twilit/pseuds/Twilit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terezi Pyrope: A blinded legislacerator. Hechm: A transportation nexus on Alternia. Dayrunners:  trolls who use the harsh radiation of daytime to hide their crimes. Dave Strider: out of his depth.</p><p>This is a story of adrenaline, bright skies, and the open road.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Overture

This is a story about the roar of a straight six, the smell of burning rubber and all the emotions left flapping in the wind. It is a story about the chase, about running away, about lives lived and left in the dust.

Your ride is cool under your touch, but that will change soon enough. Hechm rises at your back, a city-sized shadow pitted with dull and flickering lights. The catch of the door handle snaps crisply in your gloved hands, its polished metal sliding smoothly out of your leather grip as you enter. The inside smells like times best forgotten, people misremembered. But the seat welcomes you like a lover, straps enfolding you, securing you. You shiver and know you're home.

Eyes up. Can you see the endless horizon? Where the stars go to sleep, where the twin moons make their bed? Can you see it catch fire, embers of clouds alight as as the great burning orb starts another rotation? 

Now. 

Close your eyes. 

Feel the warm glow build on your skin. Feel it rise to a searing burn. Feel the benediction of Alternia's rising sun. 

Then throw it in gear

 

floor it

 

and

 

 _go_.


	2. Ignition

_They are all incompetent,_ you think, and you know immediately that you are not being fair. The problem is that they are all merely competent, sufficiently acceptable at their duties to avoid the cull or being killed in the line of duty, little enough difference between the two there may be. And that is simply unacceptable for you, because you are simply the best and you require the same.

The problem is that the only person who could match you is no longer among the ranks of the law and gone with her is your partner, your eyesight and your ability to prosecute those in dire need of it. So here you sit, interviewing troll after troll, across the hemospectrum and finding them all wanting in one manner or another. They trip over their own tongues getting through the interviews, intimidated by your sightless glare, your reputation and more immediately the _snick-schtick_ sound of your thumb idly unsheathing and sheathing your canesword. Tripping, stumbling and almost all falling flat on their faces at the question,

"Can you drive stick?"

Their answers are telling.

"Uh, no ma'am, never learned."

"No, but how hard can it be?"

"But all the force's vehicles are automatic!"

When you put out the job posting _for a driver_ stating "must have own standard transportation" you had honestly expected that your fellow investigaterrors and legislacerators would have the sense to understand that you had been referring to the transmission. Instead you got a bunch of idiots willing to ditch their own careers to hitch their stars to yours as a driver. Hell, you even got a violet-blood who COULD drive stick, but he was so over confident in his skills and so obviously just playing politics that you discarded him lest he get you killed.

So his papers went in the "NOP3" pile and you picked up a new application. Skipping the bizarrely truncated name, you read,

_Sex: Male_  
 _Age: Thirteen sweeps old_  
 _Hemocaste: NA-ET-413_

You withdraw your tongue and lick you lips. Sometimes that helps clear up your smellovision. Again,

_Hemocaste: NA-ET-413_

Still half-certain that you're reading it wrong somehow, you try to remember what hemocastes NA applied to. Drones were the obvious choice, but sex was listed as male, so that was out. Had they seriously sent you a mutant? Then something clicked. NA-ET stood for extraterrestrial, and the number thereafter would indicate which! You let out a cackle and in the room beyond you hear someone drop something with a clatter. Oh, this should be interesting! You run his identification number through your husktop instead of trying to remember which civilization had been four-hundred and thirteenth on the Empire's Roll of the Damned and Defeated Dead.

\--

Your hands are jammed in your pockets, idly fiddling with your last couple of caegars. The atmosphere in the waiting room is somewhere between tense, terrified and resentful. The tense and terrified you get, on account of this Legislacerator Pyrope being some kind of hot shit. And yeah, let's be real here, you get the resentful too. _What the hell is this human doing in here?_ is basically screaming from all of their faces. Tapping a foot and nodding your head in time to the music in your earbuds nearly got your head removed from your shoulders until the violet blood ahead of you, of all people, intervened on your behalf.

"Brothers and sisters, really! Are you seriously so insecure in your own skills that you're threatened by an alien?"

That calms them down, or at least makes them suitably embarrassed that they ignore you. You nod at him.

"Thanks," and after a moment, "uh, sir."

He nods back graciously. "No problem, human. Wouldn't want Pyrope's waiting room spattered in your entrails. I hear she disapproves of unncessary cullings."

"Huh, lucky me."

"Indeed. Pyrope's history as an unorthodox agent of the law is well known. I suppose that's why you thought you'd give this a shot, eh wwhat?" His seadweller accent comes out finally in that one pretentious psuedo-Britishism. Shit, even when they got crushed under the chitinous heel of the Alternian Empire, the Brits still set the bar for pompous-ass declarations. You're surprised the seadwellers haven't started having crumpets with their tea and shit and anyways how the fuck can you have tea under the sea do they drink it out of sippy cups or what.

You catch yourself in your ever-running internal monologue when you realize you should probably be responding to the seadweller's conversation. But a quick tune-in and it's clear he's cool with just listening to himself speak, so you nod and make approving grunts from time to time. Eventually, you turn it into a game, seeing if you can match the beat of his ramblings with your interjections.

You're interrupted when a name gets called out and suddenly the violet-blood is standing ramrod straight and swallowing noisily. You don't fucking blame him. Every time that screech that gets off calling itself a voice cuts through the air you're reminded of nails on a chalkboard and a razor held against your balls. The seadweller straightens his jacket as a dejected yellow-blood walks out of the office. Briefly your eyes flit to the sign above the door. 

"Interrogation Chamber" has been scratched out in what looks like red marker and "T3R3Z1 PYROP3'S 1NT3RV13W CH4MB3R" has been scrawled along its margins. That's not terrifying at all. You nod at your saviour,

"Good luck."

He gives you, then the room what he must imagine is a winning smile. It looks like a shark getting a suppository but you don't share that, and then he's striding into the office.

In his favour, you guess, he takes rather longer than the others and welp here's the wonderful hemospectrum fucking everything up for everyone, but mostly you, again. You're seriously considering self-culling yourself as you are obviously not going to make rent this month since you can't seem to make enough to keep a roof above both you and your car's head. Moving to Alternia was a dumb fucking move, humans can barely make enough to stay alive elsewhere in the fucking Empire. Now you're in the beating, pulsating bloodpusher of it and up to your neck in shit you don't even want to think about.

Then the seadweller saunters on out of the office all smiles.

"And that's how you do it, chaps. Bet none of you realized that the 'standard transportation' meant driving stick, eh wwhat?"

Actually you did, but who gives a shit, you're human and probably just lost this job to this douchebag. Time to find a dealer willing to take an antique human automated quadrupel-wheeled carriage. _Sorry Nelly, gotta put you down. These trolls'll wreck you in a perigree, but daddy's lost the farm and the kids gotta eat._

Then that alien fucking banshee voice cackles madly and your balls retreat into somewhere around your chest. A nervous-looking olive blood drops his steel briefcase, scrambling to pick it up. The seadweller shifts uneasily and hurries out. There's a few moments silence before banshee voice screeches,

"DAYVUH STRID'R!" 

So you suck in a deep breath, stand, loosen your tie and shrug yourself into a slouch. Showtime.

\--

You want to get a good first impression of the alien, so you loll your tongue all the way out, exposing every receptor.

\--

You want to make a good first impression so you don't fucking bolt the moment you see a maw full of knives and a foot-long tongue waiting hungrily for you.

\--

He stands uncertainly at the door, but that's nothing new. Pinkish skin, as expected. Blonde hair so light it may as well be light. Light-blocking eyeglasses and you wonder if that is an affectation or a necessity on Alternia. A black suit, with a loosely done tie, hanging on a frame you'd judge as just on the right side of lanky. There's some manner of symbol on one breast, but you can't get a good whiff of it, so you let it go. And there, somewhere on the edges, maybe under the suit, behind the glasses or under the skin... a whiff of cherry red.

"Shut the door and have a seat, Dayvuh."

"It's Dave," he replies but complies. 

"My sincere apologies, Dave." He's clearly not naive enough to think them sincere, you can smell.

"No sweat, get it all the time Legislacerator."

"You are very casual, Dave!"

"Oh shit, was Legislacerator not formal enough? Welp, time to throw myself at the mercy of the Cruelest Bar and pray for a swift disembowling or a good cleaning hanging, my crimes are self-evident and there's clearly no getting out of them, oh please your viciousness go fast and hard on me."

You blink, taking a moment to absorb his deadpan delivery in accented Alternian. 

\--

Outside the gathered trolls hear a loud thump followed by _gales_ of ear-splitting cackling. They trade nervous glances and eye the door.

\--

You have to pull yourself back into your chair and your sides are still shaking with laughter.

"Fearless! I like this, Dave Strider! But you are going to have to prove that you are a more worthy partner than every other law-officiated troll out there!"

The human shrugs laconically. "Nah. I've just gotta prove that I'm a better driver than 'em."

You go still and serious, the sudden change getting only a shift out of him. "And are you?"

"Lady, everything about my driving history is in that file. Short of takin' you for a ride, I ain't sure what else I can do to prove that."

"Hmm, very good." You nod. He is also very direct. You would value that in a partner, to offset your tendency to bullshit plots-within-plots but he is not law enforcement. While it's true that your call was strictly for a driver, you had only expected other police to answer. You will have to discard most of your questioning process. Exciting!

"How did you come across this position, Mr. Strider?" 

"Found it while searching for jobs that needed a car. Looked cool, paid well."

"Hmm. You drive stick?"

"Absolutely."

"And you have your own car?"

"Yup."

"Make? Model?"

"Lancia Delta." 

Your nostrils flare. Probably a human carriage. It would be interesting to find out how he got it here. "I am not familiar with this vehicle, Mr. Strider."

"Hell lady, most humans aren't either. It goes pretty quick though."

"Indeed." You take a sniff at his papers again. "I would be interested to know how you came to be here in Hechm, Mr. Strider."

And so you question him on his past, cross-referencing everything in your file with what he tells you. It's a remarkably bland story. His lusus-analogue died in the conquest of Earth, he grew up alone, racing for fun and eventually profit and eventually made his way to Alternia to try his luck in the great motor-city of Hechm. Sentimentally, he brought his vehicle with him, at great cost. He does not noticeably sweat, even when you poke at weak points in his story. A very cool character this one.

"You are aware why Hechm is called the Transportation City, yes, Mr. Strider? Along with having the busiest spacesport on Alternia, the majority of Alternia's automated quadrupel-wheeled carriages are produced here and they are all of high quality, though little imagination."

"Yeah. If you're asking if my Lancia can beat that trash, lemme lay it out for y-"

"I am not interested in whether or not you can beat the mass-produced rustwagons that rattle out of the manufactories, I am interested in whether you can beat the more cunningly designed and customised vehicles of the Dayrunners."

At that he sits back. "Oh."

"You know of the Dayrunners, of course?"

He waves that question away, "Yeah, 'course. Smugglers, thieves, general purpose-hooligans. It's just..."

"Yes?"

"Look, it's a trick fucking question. No, I don't know if I can out-perform those rides because I've never seen or raced or ever associated with Dayrunners because I like my head where it is and I don't wanna get culling for any of the above."

A sharp cackle leaves your throat which you notice he forces himself not to flinch at. Well! It's taken longer than usual, but you are starting to get a read on him.

"Good answer Mr. Strider! Your healthy respect for the law has been noted. Now-" You look over your glasses at him, fixing him with your sightless red orbs. It doesn't take a read on him to note that he shifts nervously. "-do you _think_ you can out-perform them?"

He's quiet for a moment. "Hell. Sure, why the hell not. Haven't met a fucking gearhorn on this planet I couldn't pwn yet."

\--

Her grin is wide with the promise of a future of pain and danger. But it's a future, so you ain't backing down.

"Show me."


	3. Revs

The human leads you to the guest carriageblock. Your exit from your office had been a whirlwind as your cane thwapped carelessly against the remaining trolls shins.

"Interviews are concluded for today! You will receive a notification later today if you are required back tomorrow night."

Your erstwhile colleagues levelled glares that could have cut steel at Strider. It's a handy thing to be able to see in three hundred and sixty degrees and your tongue lolled out again to take in his reaction. Which is to say, you still couldn't register one. A room full of murder and the human strolled out casually, hands jammed in his pockets. Your hearing picked up a clink-clink of caegars and your nose picked up the spike of some alien chemical. You will have to try and learn all this delicious human's peculiarities should he pass.

You can tell that you are nearing his car because his pace slows almost reverently and presently so does yours. The car that he leads you to is a bright red splotch in your vision, standing out from the other muted colours around it. Your mouth waters and you lick a long line across its outline, taking in its shape.

"Ew," opines the human.

It is a blocky thing, and you imagine not particularly pretty to behold, could you behold it. It certainly lacks the insectile and aerodynamic lines of troll vehicles. Nevermind that it is nearly half the length of them. But it also smells and tastes of _purpose_ and _spirit_ like it knows its job. And the metal smells very, very old.

"Mr. Strider, how old is this vehicle?"

"About eighteen perigrees, give or take. Don't exactly have a real ownership history here, bought the damn thing half-ruined from the junkyard."

You are silent for a moment. "And it still _moves_?!"

"Yeah, see, some of us pitiful humans do this thing called _maintenance_ and keep our machines running instead of running them into the ground. Some of us," he mutters.

"Well, you are to be commended." You draw yourself back together and gesture at the door to be let in. He lets himself in first and from you can tell has to _reach across_ and unlock your door. He pops it open for you and you slip into it, incredulous at the low tech. Inside you are cupped in an uncomfortable plastic seat. At least it has an Alternian regulation cross-point harness. You buckle yourself in and take a sniff around. It smells like takeout grubs and coffee, but for all that is fairly clean. Certainly cleaner than your last partner's ride. Plenty of metal surfaces gleam and the plastic has a polished sheen to it. There is a gaping hole in the front console which you indicate with a cocked eyebrow.

"Earth radio. Useless here, took it out to save weight."

As he looks over his shoulder to back out, you look back as well and note that the radio is not the only thing that he has removed. The entire back seating has been removed and replaced with cross-bars of some indeterminate metal and also painted bright red. A few empty takeout bags shift on the bar metal floor.

"You also lack radiation tinting." 

"Yeah, something about a curfew for alien species and not being allowed to drive during the day? Iunno if you've heard of that, some bureaucratic bullshit liable to remove my fine head from my neck."

"Aha," you respond. You take a closer look at him. His face is far too soft and round to be attractive, but perhaps to his people?

"So Mr. Strider, how is it that you think a two decagree car will manage to beat the finest vehicles of the Alternian wastes?"

He shrugs laconically. "Car's only half the thing, legislacerator. I'm a damn good driver, made my way on amateur rally circuits no problem."

He shifts smoothly, you note, and other than a peculiarly high, warbly growl from the engine, it seems to go very similarly to an Alternian ground carriage.

"Then again, those races weren't always fair. Not everyone could field a V16 engine."

Your head whips around to stare at him in shock. " _How_ many cylind-"

The rest of your question is lost in the shrieking, window-rattling howl of a tiny metal dragon tearing a smoking path out of the guest carriageblock.

\--

Ok, so it probably wasn't the most professional thing to do, but the sight of Pyrope grabbing at the bucket seat and oh-shit bar in shock and terror was totally worth it. Serves her right for talking shit about your baby girl. Ok, she didn't exactly talk shit, but you could see the disdain in her look. You'd seen it in the face of just about every troll who knew shit about vehicles. And you'd wiped it off all their faces in more or less the same fashion. This is the first time any of them had been inside with you, though.

Belatedly you wonder if she's going to sink those claws into you, as you note the punctures in the seat.

"Sixteen," you answer, casual as can be once you get onto the road. You hadn't gotten her up to speed, but the shock of the acceleration should have been enough to get the point across.

The legislacerator is quiet a moment longer as she uncurls her claws. Then there's a high-pitched sound keening from her throat that suddenly resolves into that terrible cackle.

"Good! Insubordinate, but I will let that go for now." She settles into the seat and reaches into her coat, a bright red thing that clashes with her teal uniform as much as it matches the Delta. She pulls out a small device and clacks away on its screen. "There. I have set the transponder. This vehicle will temporarily register as a law enforcement car. Turn right here."

You're already halfway through the intersection, but you were also half-expecting some bullshit like this and wrench the wheel around and pull the massive handbrake. There's the screech of tires and plenty of smoke, but you pull around and narrowly miss another car. Pyrope doesn't reach for the bar this time, apparently more ready for your performance.

As she puts you and the car through more of these sudden turns, she quizzes you on various bits of Alternian law and road knowledge. Some of it you know, and most of the law bits you don't but you're a quick pick-up on the bits that matter to you.

"Why are there no hover vehicles in use in Hechm?"

"There are. at the spaceport. But you trolls wreck your shit too often that it's a waste of money, so ground cars are more popular."

"Name the four closest fueling stations to the Northspar Gate."

"Uh, Hemmerton and Bloodwyne, Bloodwyne and the Spar, Spinecrunch Plaza and, uh, fuck. I dunno, Sactat's? But that's like 5 klicks away."

"What is the best location to ram a Peznat 414?"

"No fucking idea, where?"

"Driver's side, obviously."

"Oh, obviously. Hey, how much ramming am I going to have to do on this job?"

"You do not have this job yet, Mr. Strider. Where is the best location to ram a Daggerthrust?"

"Not the driver's side, christ, the chassisblade would rip this thing apart. Uh, rear passenger side?"

"Explain."

"No chassisblade there, and since the Daggerthrust is front wheel drive, you could spin it out and get it stuck in a wall?"

"What is the maximum displacement of a vehicle in the inner city?"

"Fifteen tons."

"How can you spot a dayrunner car?"

"Christ, I don't know. It doesn't move like a piece of shit?"

"What has precedence, an investigaterror, legislacertor or a military rank?"

"Military, legislacerator, then investigaterror."

"Good! Unless one of the them is under investigation. A highblood causes an accident in a lowblood quarter, killing many. What is the most severe fine or punishment he can be subjected to?"

"He can't. The other lowbloods have killed him already."

"Ha! But theoretically?"

"No idea."

"Hmm. You are engaged in a joint chase with other members of the force, do you keep up with them or outpace them?"

"What am I chasing?" There's a hollow thump as you hit some manner of container; it flips end-over-end over your car.

"Four unidentified dayrunners."

"Shit, I stick with them. Not risking my neck playin' hero, oh lookit me, rubbing your faces in the fact that I can dust your shit cars wait why am I full of bullets."

"How is fuel efficiency in this vehicle?"

You shoot her a deadpan glare while drifting through another intersection and lining up with a decently wide alley. "It's a V16, what the fuck do you think the fuel efficiency is?"

"I do not know! That is why I ask questions, Mr. Strider. I have never heard of a sixteen valve engine being fitted to a car this small, and for all I know you humans have extraordinary fuel conservation technology!"

"Yeah that came about twenty years after this thing was made, and besides, I had to convert the damn thing to take Alternian fuel."

"So it is a very thirsty car?"

"Shit yeah, I'm lucky if I get one hundred kay out of seventeen liters."

"What is the fastest route from Quorlane to the Abatoir?"

"Off the Spatterway Bridge and through the old reservoir tunnels."

She looks at you. "You're joking. How do you get out?"

"Nope. There's an open stretch, like a big-ass gully just south of the Abatoir, get up to speed and ramp straight out of there onto the Lower Abatway."

"Impressive. Up onto the guard wall, please."

"Uh." You answer dumbly. The government ramp to the massive wall that surrounded Hechm was right in front of you. But then so were the heavy drones guarding it.

"We will register as my car, remember, Mr. Strider. Do not slow."

Your knuckles are white as you blaze past the drones and they pay you no mind, their plasma cannons at ease and pointing at the floor. 

"Keep up speed. I have sent an evacuation order to the wall guards to get them in doors, so there should not be anyone in our way."

You keep your foot down on the pedal, the Lancia picking up speed and eating up the wall with ease. As you get up near your top speed an uncomfortable rattle starts through the car. You say nothing, and hope the legislacerator does not either.

"Top speed, Mr. Strider?"

"Just hit it, I think. two hundred and eleven kph. Fuck, lost more in the conversion than I thought I would."

"Really? It's still a very competitive speed. Most Alternian cars-"

"Won't break two hundred, yeah, I know. But what about dayrunners?"

"From what I have observed, it depends a lot on the vehicle. Some get past two hundred, yes, and pretty far too! But as you say Mr. Strider, the car is only half the issue."

She flashes you a gleaming, knife-filled maw. "But even so, I don't think I've ever seen a car accelerate quite as fast as this Lahntsia did out of the carriageblock." 

"Lancia, and yeah, my baby girl's got legs like whoa and she don't like slow starts, can't wait to get her flow on and go, go go."

Another cackle. "And a slam poet as well! Very well, Mr. Strider, give your Lancia her legs, once more around the wall. May as well get the guards used to the sight of this weird car."

The sudden whiteness of your knuckles is your only reaction as you realize _holy shit_ you just landed the job. _Holy fucksticks, Rose was right_. But you don't give Pyrope the pleasure of seeing you flip your shit. You just nod and make another loop. You notice her language getting more and more casual and think maybe working for a legislacertor won't be slaving-away job you were worried about.

\--

It is getting very close to dawn as Strider drops you at your hivestem. He is looking worriedly at the sky and his console. You realize that you have probably drained almost all his fuel. Suddenly something clicks in your mind, as these things sometimes do, and realize what the caegar-fiddling was about. He was probably very nearly out of money and this job was to be his last shot. You wonder if he would have become another alien stuck on the streets had you not decided that he was more than competent. You wonder what would have become of his little metal dragon.

Before you go in, you hand him the transponder and your carriagecard. It's not like you can use them yourself anymore. "You may use this to refuel your car and get it properly tinted at the legislacerator carriageblock. I will see you tomorrow evening in my office for an orientation."

You turn and enter your hivestem, effectively dismissing him.

\--

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 05:43 --

TG: ok yeah i bow to your wisdom and freaky vision things   
TG: i'm in   
TT: Imagine my surprise. It is as if I have never lead you wrong in all our long years of acquaintance.   
TT: Although truly, I am surprised that you have surrendered the opportunity to make some manner of sexual innuendo regarding you being "in" Legislacertor Pyrope's employ.   
TG: what can i say i am fucking tired   
TG: pyrope ran me ragged, drained my legendary fucking stamina til i was hung limp over my fucking wheel   
TG: there, vague sexy innuendo done, happy?   
TG: also holy shit no I am not getting in bed or cocoon with that woman don't even suggest it   
TT: I would never dream of discomfitting you so.   
TT: Irregardless, to accomplish our mission, this is what you must do next:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those of you waiting on new Time On Our Side chapters, I apologize and beg your indulgence in this gearhead nonsense.

**Author's Note:**

> i accidentally another story


End file.
